The trailer opens with new footage of Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife placing the baby Kal-El in an Earthbound-spaceship as Krypton — a far more realized, art-directed Krypton than in the original 1978 "Superman" — crumbles around them.

"He'll be an outcast. They'll kill him," his wife tells Jor-El. He responds: "He'll be a god to them."

Later, as the young Clark Kent struggles with his powers, his father Jonathan, played by Kevin Costner, tells him, "I have to believe that you were sent here for a reason. And even if it takes the rest of your life, you owe it to yourself to find out what that reason is."

In the trailer, it seems Superman becomes scruffy lone wolf hero until his sojourn to the Fortress of Solitude and the donning of the red cape and tights. We hear Jor-El say, "You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you. They will stumble, they will fall, but in time they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders." Cue takeoff.

We also see General Zod (Michael Shannon) and Lois Lane (Amy Adams), but no sign of the blustering Daily Planet editor Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) or the newspaper itself. Layoffs?